Postmedia Network

History

The ownership group was assembled by National Post CEO Paul Godfrey in 2010 to bid for the chain of newspapers being sold by the financially troubled Asper family's Canwest (the company's broadcasting assets were sold separately to Shaw Communications). Godfrey secured financial backing from a U.S. private equity firm, the Manhattan-based hedge fund GoldenTree Asset Management—which owns 35 per cent—as well as IJNR Investment Trust, Nyppex and other investors. The group completed a $1.1 billion transaction to acquire the chain from Canwest on July 13, 2010.

On October 6, 2014, Postmedia's CEO Godfrey announced a deal to acquire the English-language operations of Sun Media. The purchase received regulatory approval from the federal Competition Bureau on March 25, 2015, even though the company manages competitive papers in several Canadian cities; while the Sun Media chain owns numerous other papers, four of its five Sun-branded tabloids operate in markets where Postmedia already publishes a broadsheet competitor. and closed on April 13.

In 2016, the company sought to restructure its compensation plans and reduce spending by as much as 20%, after reporting a net loss of $99.4 million, or 35 cents per diluted share, in the fourth-quarter ended Aug 31, compared with a $54.1 million net loss, or 19 cents per diluted share, in the same period a year earlier. This resulted in 90 newsroom staff losing their jobs. Also in 2016, it was announced that the newsrooms of newspapers in Ottawa, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver, where Postmedia owns competing newspapers, would be merged into one newsroom per location while continuing to print each newspaper.

On November 27, 2017, Postmedia and Torstar announced a transaction in which Postmedia will sell seven dailies, eight community papers, and the Toronto and Vancouver 24 Hours to Torstar, in exchange for 22 community papers and the Ottawa and Winnipeg versions of Metro. Except for the Exeter Times-Advocate, St. Catharines Standard, Niagara Falls Review, Peterborough Examiner, and Welland Tribune, all acquired papers will be closed.

On June 26, 2018, Canadian Press reported that, by the end of August, Postmedia will be closing the Camrose Canadian in Camrose, Alberta, Strathmore Standard in Strathmore, Alberta, Kapuskasing Northern Times in Kapuskasing, Ontario, Ingersoll Times in Ingersoll, Ontario, Norwich Gazette in Norwich, Ontario and Petrolia Topic in Petrolia, Ontario. It will also cease printing the Portage Daily Graphic in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba, the Northern News in Kirkland Lake, Ontario, and Pembroke Daily Observer in Pembroke, Ontario while maintaining a digital presence for the three publications. As well, the High River Times in High River, Alberta will go from being published twice a week to once a week.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Postmedia laid off approximately 80 employees and permanently closed 15 community publications while navigating the financial strain of COVID-19. While the company utilized government subsidies, they claim they were unable to offset the decline in revenue.

Postmedia closed 15 community newspapers in Manitoba and Ontario’s Windsor-Essex area as the publications were no longer financially sustainable. The publications included Manitoba’s Altona Red River Valley Echo, Carman Valley Leader, Gimli Intertake Spectator, Morden Times, Selkirk Journal, Stonewall Argus & Teulon Times, Winkler Times, and The Prairie Farmer, leaving Portage La Prairie as the company’s community presence in the province. For Ontario, the closures included the Kingsville Reporter, Lakeshore News (Windsor-Essex area), LaSalle Post, Napanee Guide, Paris Star, Tecumseh Shoreline Week, and Tilbury Times.

On February 17, 2022, Postmedia announced a definitive agreement to acquire Brunswick News Inc. (BNI). As well as several New Brunswick daily and weekly newspapers and "digital properties", BNI's assets included a parcel delivery business and "proprietary distribution software".

In 2023, Postmedia announced it would be moving a dozen of its Alberta community papers to digital-only platforms, aiming for more outsourcing deals and laying off employees. The announcement was made January 18, 2023, during an internal memo to staff that was obtained by The Canadian Press, describing the measures as a part of a "transformation plan geared toward managing costs". Later that day, Postmedia said it had also sold the Calgary Herald building for $17.23 million to U-Haul Co. after trying to sell it for nearly a decade.

In July 2023, Postmedia Network Canada Corp. and Nordstar Capital LP announced that merger discussion between the two newspaper publishers will not continue.

On May 27, 2024, Postmedia announced that it would sell the Winnipeg Sun, the Portage la Prairie Graphic Leader, Kenora Miner and News, and company's Winnipeg printing operations to politician and former Sun publisher Kevin Klein.

In July 2024, the company entered into an agreement to acquire SaltWire Network. During the first week of December 2024, Postmedia rebranded Saltwire as PNI Atlantic News, with their websites changing to look like the parent company's other newspapers.

| access-date = December 20, 2024 | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20241220220742/https://www.saltwire.com/atlantic-canada/note-to-readers | archive-date = December 20, 2024 | url-status = live

Operating branch

Postmedia News is the news branch of Postmedia Network, providing similar content to all of its subsidiary news outlets and websites. It is identified as a source on all of its subsidiary newspapers. The news agency provides news, sports, entertainment, photography, financial and feature information and data to Postmedia Network's Canadian newspapers, online properties and a number of third party clients in Canada and the United States.

Criticism

Ties to right wing politics

In October 2018, in an opinion piece for National Observer, Davide Mastracci reported that CEO Andrew MacLeod had declared Postmedia's publication, the National Post, "insufficiently conservative". It was reported that in June 2019, Kevin Libin, who helped defeat a union drive at the National Post earlier that year, took the role of "executive editor (politics)" to "oversee or run federal political coverage in the Post as well as federal and provincial coverage in all of the chain’s metro daily broadsheets." Mastracci and Sean Craig of Canadaland argued this was to ensure the newspapers became more "'reliably' conservative."

In November 2019, Postmedia announced that 66% of its shares were now owned by Chatham Asset Management, an American media conglomerate which owns American Media, Inc. and is known for its close ties to the Republican party.

Centralization Operations

The creation of the Postmedia Network effectively concentrates more than 90 percent of all Canadian dailies and weeklies in one company, a fact lamented by J-Source, a Canadian media watchdog, in a 2015 online article.

Margo Goodhand, a former Edmonton Journal editor-in-chief*,* wrote in a 2016 Walrus article that Postmedia executives were behind the outsourcing of Postmedia content to a site within an office in Canada for the sake of producing “Regina Leader-Post sports pages, Arts fronts for the Montreal Gazette, editorial pages for the Vancouver Sun”. In a 2020 article by The New York Times, it was reported journalists had attested that since Chatham Asset Management took over, Postmedia had centralized operations and cut staff so that its 106 newspapers were essentially clones of one another.

Relationship with the government

On November 27, 2018, The Competition Bureau applied for a court evaluation contesting Postmedia's claims of solicitor-client privilege, for records seized by the bureau during raids at the company's offices. In March 2018, the Competition Bureau issued a court filing accusing Postmedia and Torstar of structuring the deal they made together with no-compete clauses in an effort to reduce competition in the newspaper industry in violation of the Competition Act.

According to Marc Edge, author of The Postmedia Effect, the network received $9.9 million in government financial assistance in 2022. In the same year, Postmedia's operating income was only $13 million.

Treatment of staff

In 2016, Paul Godfrey took a $900,000 bonus during a time when Postmedia laid off staff company-wide. CFO Doug Lamb received $450,000, COO Andrew MecLeod $425,000, legal and general counsel Jeffrey Harr $300,000, and National Post president Gordon Fisher $200,000. Unions representing Canadian journalists wanted the Postmedia executives to reject the total $2,275,000 as the newspaper chain continued to cut staff.

Decline of journalistic quality

In 2015, the Globe and Mail reported that National Post columnist Conrad Black, who used to own some of Postmedia's newspapers and is one of Postmedia's largest investors, told executives that he felt that some of the properties' qualities have deteriorated. Black felt that the company should be investing on improving the quality of its properties.

Assets

Advertising

• The Flyer Force
• Go!Local

Publishing

[[Broadsheet]] dailies and weeklies

• National Post
• Financial Post (administratively part of the National Post)
• Belleville Intelligencer
• Brantford Expositor
• Calgary Herald
• Cape Breton Post
• Chatham Daily News
• The Chronicle Herald (Halifax)
• Cornwall Standard Freeholder
• Edmonton Journal
• Kenora Daily Miner and News
• Kingston Whig-Standard
• London Free Press
• The Gazette (Montreal)
• North Bay Nugget
• Ottawa Citizen
• Regina Leader-Post
• The StarPhoenix (Saskatoon)
• Sault Star
• The Telegram
• The Telegraph-Journal
• Timmins Daily Press
• Vancouver Sun (not related to the tabloid Sun newspapers also owned by Postmedia)
• Windsor Star

[[Tabloid (newspaper format)|Tabloid]] dailies

• Calgary Sun
• Edmonton Sun
• Ottawa Sun
• Sudbury Star
• The Province (Vancouver)
• Toronto Sun

[[Community journalism|Community]] newspapers

Postmedia owns newspapers that serve smaller communities across Canada, including:

• Airdrie Echo (tabloid)
• Bow Valley Crag and Canyon (tabloid)
• Brockville Recorder and Times (broadsheet)
• Chatham This Week (tabloid)
• Clinton News-Record (tabloid)
• Cochrane Times (Alberta) (tabloid)
• Cochrane Times-Post (tabloid)
• Cold Lake Sun (tabloid)
• Drayton Valley Western Review (tabloid)
• Edson Leader (tabloid)
• Elliot Lake Standard (tabloid)
• Fort McMurray Today (tabloid)
• Fort Saskatchewan Record (tabloid)
• Goderich Signal-Star (tabloid)
• Grande Prairie Daily Herald-Tribune (tabloid)
• Hanna Herald (tabloid)
• High River Times (tabloid)
• Hinton Parklander (tabloid)
• Kincardine News (tabloid)
• Kingston This Week (tabloid)
• Lakeshore Advance (Grand Bend; tabloid)
• Leduc Representative (tabloid)
• Lloydminster Meridian Booster (tabloid) sold to Lloydminster Source Ltd
• Mid-North Monitor (Espanola; tabloid)
• Mayerthorpe Freelancer (tabloid)
• Nanton News (tabloid)
• Owen Sound Sun Times (broadsheet)
• Peace River Record-Gazette (broadsheet)
• Pincher Creek Echo (tabloid)
• Red River Valley Echo (tabloid) closed 2020
• Sarnia Observer (broadsheet)
• Sherwood Park News (tabloid)
• Simcoe Reformer (tabloid)
• St. Thomas Times-Journal (tabloid)
• Stratford Beacon Herald (broadsheet)
• Vulcan Advocate (tabloid)
• Vermilion Standard (tabloid)
• Whitecourt Star (tabloid)
• Winkler Times (tabloid)
• Woodstock Sentinel-Review (broadsheet)

Former assets

• 24 Hours (Toronto, Vancouver) sold to Torstar and closed, 2017
• Barrie Examiner sold to Torstar and closed, 2017
• Bradford Times (tabloid) sold to Torstar and closed, 2017
• Camrose Canadian (tabloid), closed 2018
• Collingwood Enterprise Bulletin sold to Torstar and closed, 2017
• Niagara Falls Review (broadsheet) sold to Torstar, 2017
• Norwich Gazette, closed 2018
• Orillia Packet & Times (broadsheet) sold to Torstar and closed, 2017
• Pembroke Daily Observer (broadsheet), ceasing print edition 2018
• Peterborough Examiner (broadsheet) sold to Torstar, 2017
• St. Catharines Standard (broadsheet) sold to Torstar in 2017
• Strathmore Standard (tabloid), closed 2018

Magazines

• Financial Post Business
• Living Windsor
• Muskoka Magazine
• Kingston Life Magazine
• Interiors Magazine
• Backpack Magazine
• Cannabis Post
• Muskoka Visitor Guide
• Ontario Farmer Magazines (Hog, Beef, Dairy)
• TVtimes

Online

• Canada.com
• Infomart.com
• Canoe.com
• celebrating.com
• connecting.com
• driving.ca
• househunting.ca
• remembering.ca
• shoplocal.ca
• SwarmJam.com

In addition, Postmedia Network owns all websites associated with all properties listed on this page either wholly or in partnership.

Software

• QuickTrac
• QuickWire

References

References

1. (21 October 2022). "Postmedia Reports Fourth Quarter Results". Postmedia Network Canada Corp..
2. https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/POSTMEDIA-NETWORK-CANADA--42378696/company-shareholders. Major Sharholders Postmedia Network Canada Corp. Retrieved March 13, 2025
3. (2021). "2021 Annual Information Form". Postmedia Network Canada Corp..
4. "Federal Corporation Information". Corporations Canada.
5. Craig, Sean. (August 12, 2019). "You Must Be This Conservative To Ride: The Inside Story of Postmedia's Right Turn".
6. Noël, Caroline. (2023-09-09). "Paper Rout".
7. "Contact Us {{!}} Postmedia".
8. [http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/postmedia-revamps-ottawa-citizen-s-digital-service-1.2648645 "Postmedia revamps Ottawa Citizen's digital service"] {{Webarchive. link. (July 8, 2022 . [[CBC News]], May 20, 2014.)
9. Olive, David. (January 23, 2015). "Postmedia and the heavy price it pays to survive: Olive".
10. Flavelle, Dana. (2014-10-06). "Postmedia buys 175-paper Sun Media for $316 million".
11. [http://www.competitionbureau.gc.ca/eic/site/cb-bc.nsf/eng/03898.html Competition Bureau will not challenge Postmedia’s acquisition of Sun Media] {{Webarchive. link. (September 23, 2015 . ''[[Competition Bureau]]'', March 25, 2015.)
12. "Postmedia purchase of Quebecor's Sun Media OK'd by Competition Bureau".
13. Bradshaw, James. (April 13, 2015). "Postmedia-Sun Media deal officially closes". The Globe and Mail.
14. (June 21, 2016). "Five things to know with Canada's news media industry under public policy review". CityNews Toronto.
15. "Postmedia integrating four major market newsrooms, including in Edmonton, following Sun acquisition". edmontonjournal.
16. (November 27, 2017). "Postmedia to close community newspapers in Stratford, London, St. Thomas". CBC News.
17. Krashinsky Robertson, Susan. (November 27, 2017). "Torstar, Postmedia swap community papers, most to close". The Globe and Mail.
18. Healing, Dan. (June 26, 2018). "Postmedia to close more local newspapers, cut staff by 10 per cent". Ottawa Citizen.
19. Sagan, Aleksandra. (April 28, 2020). "Postmedia to lay off 80, permanently close 15 newspapers amid coronavirus fallout".
20. (17 February 2022). "Postmedia to Acquire Brunswick News Inc. and Extend Maturity of its First and Second Lien Notes".
21. Deschamps, Tara. (Jan 18, 2023). "Postmedia announces plan to move 12 Alberta papers to digital-only, layoff staff". Toronto Star.
22. Evans, Pete. (July 10, 2023). "Merger talks between Postmedia and Toronto Star owner fall apart".
23. (2024-05-27). "Postmedia selling the Winnipeg Sun, the Graphic Leader, and Kenora Miner & News".
24. Froese, Ian. (May 27, 2024). "Former PC cabinet minister Kevin Klein buying Winnipeg Sun from Postmedia".
25. Yarr, Kevin. (Jul 26, 2024). "Postmedia enters agreement to buy SaltWire chain of newspapers".
26. "Postmedia News {{!}} National Post".
27. Yelland, Tannara. (June 6, 2018). "How Postmedia Defeated A Union Drive At The National Post". CANADALAND.
28. (August 27, 2019). "Postmedia's employees should stand up to their right-wing bosses". National Observer.
29. Subramanian, Sarmishta. (August 6, 2019). "The new worry about the next election: your daily news".
30. "Postmedia Fiscal 2020 Q1 financial report".
31. (2018-08-30). "Behind Trump Tabloid King, a Connected and Flush Hedge Fund". Bloomberg.
32. Baluja, Tamara. (November 29, 2013). "Diversity of Media Ownership Literally Non-existent in Canada".
33. Goodh, Margo. (2016-02-04). "Above the Fold".
34. (July 16, 2020). "Under Hedge Fund Set to Own McClatchy, Canadian Newspapers Endured Big Cuts". The New York Times.
35. Carney, Bryan. (February 5, 2019). "Torstar (Again) Blocks Release of Evidence in Conspiracy Case". The Tyee.
36. Jackson, Emily. (March 22, 2018). "Competition Bureau's concerns over Postmedia-Torstar newspaper swap revealed in court filing". Financial Post.
37. Milstead, David. (March 22, 2018). "Torstar, Postmedia and the arrogance of the deal". The Globe and Mail.
38. Edge, March. (June 13, 2023). "Postmedia is in a crash dive – Ottawa should let it decline". The Globe and Mail.
39. Bradshaw, James. (November 23, 2016). "Postmedia executives receive $2.3-million in retention bonuses". The Globe and Mail.
40. Woodhouse, Kristin. (November 24, 2016). "Unions demand Postmedia executives reject $2.3 million in bonuses".
41. (2015-07-09). "Postmedia reports major drop in revenues, Conrad Black scolds leaders". The Globe and Mail.
42. Livesey, Bruce. (2015-11-24). "The tawdry fall of the Postmedia newspaper empire {{!}} Canada's National Observer: Climate News".
43. (November 27, 2017). "'The alarm bells should go off:' Postmedia, Torstar deal will see 36 community papers closed - Financial Post".